China, which chairs the trilateral finance meeting, said it was called off "because there were no issues that needed to be discussed and coordinated by the three countries", the Japanese official said.

But Japanese public broadcaster NHK and the Asahi newspaper reported that the cancellation may have been stoked by events earlier this week when nearly 170 Japanese lawmakers visited a controversial war shrine in central Tokyo, seen as a potent symbol of Japan's imperialist past.

The move sparked an angry diplomatic response from Beijing and Seoul, which are also both embroiled in tense territorial disputes with Tokyo.